The Day I Met Daniel

It was an unusually cold day for the month of May.
Spring had arrived and everything was alive with color.
But a cold front from the north had brought
winter's chill back to Indiana.
I sat with two friends in the picture window of a quaint restaurant
just off the corner of the town square. The food and the company
were both especially good that day. As we talked, my attention was
drawn outside, across the street. There, walking into town,
was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his
back. He was carrying a well-worn sign that read, "I will work for food."
My heart sank.
I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others
around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a mixture of
sadness and disbelief. We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in
my mind.
We finished our meal and went our separate ways. I had errands to do
and quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town square,
looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful,
knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I drove through
town and saw nothing of him. I made some purchases at a store and got
back in my car.
Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: "Don't go back
to the office until you've at least driven once more around the square."
And so, with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the
square's third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the
store front church, going through his sack. I stopped and looked,
feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to drive on.
The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign from God:
an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and approached the town's
newest visitor.
"Looking for the pastor?" I asked.
"Not really," he replied, "Just resting."
"Have you eaten today?"
"Oh, I ate something early this morning."
"Would you like to have lunch with me?
"Do you have some work I could do for you?"
"No work," I replied. " I commute here to work from the city, but I
would like to take you to lunch."
"Sure," he replied with a smile.
As he began to gather his things. I asked some surface questions.
"Where you headed?"
"St. Louis."
"Where you from?"
"Oh, all over; mostly Florida."
"How long you been walking?"
"Fourteen years," came the reply.
I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in
the same restaurant I had left earlier. His face was weathered slightly
beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with
an eloquence and articulation that was startling. He removed his jacket to
reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, "Jesus is The Never Ending Story."
Then Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in
life. He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences. Fourteen
years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the
beach in Daytona. He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a
large tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought. He was hired, but the
tent would not house a concert but revival services, and in those services
he saw life more clearly. He gave his life over to God.
"Nothing's been the same since", he said, "I felt the Lord
telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now."
"Ever think of stopping?" I asked.
"Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me. But God
has given me this calling. I give out Bibles. That's what's in my sack.
I work to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads."
I sat amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission
and lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment
and then I asked:
"What's it like?"
"What?"
"To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to
show your sign?"
"Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make
comments. Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and
made a gesture that certainly didn't make me feel welcome.
But then it became humbling to realize that God was using me to touch
lives and change people's concepts of other folks like me."
My concept was changing, too. We finished our dessert and gathered his
things. Just outside the door, he paused. He turned to me and said,
"Come ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I've
prepared for you. For when I was hungry you gave me food,
when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger and you took me in."
I felt as if we were on holy ground.
"Could you use another Bible?" I asked.
He said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was
not too heavy. It was also his personal favorite.
"I've read through it 14 times,"he said. "I'm not sure we've got
one of those, but let's stop by our church and see."
I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he
seemed very grateful.
"Where you headed from here?"
"Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park
coupon."
"Are you hoping to hire on there for awhile?"
"No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that
star right there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next."
He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his
mission. I drove him back to the town square where we'd met two hours earlier,
and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his things.
"Would you sign my autograph book?" he asked. "I like to keep
messages from folks I meet."
I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had
touched my life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him
with a verse of scripture, in Jeremiah,
"I know the plans I have for you," declared the Lord, "plans to
prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future and a
hope."
"Thanks, man," he said. "I know we just met and we're really just
strangers,but I love you."
"I know," I said, "I love you, too."
"The Lord is good."
"Yes. He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?" I
asked.
"A long time," he replied.
And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend
and I embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed. He put his
things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said,
"See you in the New Jerusalem."
"I'll be there!" was my reply.
He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from
his bed roll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said,
"When you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray
for me?"
"You bet," I shouted back, "God bless."
"God bless."
And that was the last I saw of him. Late that evening as I left my
office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled hard upon the town.
I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached for the
emergency brake, I saw them....a pair of well-worn brown work gloves
neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up and thought
of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night
without them. I remembered his words:
"If you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray
for me?"
Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me to see the
world and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those
two hours with my unique friend and to pray for his ministry.
"See you in the New Jerusalem," he said.
Yes, Daniel, I know I will....